"I grow tired of waiting, at long last. The Dreamheart is a piece of the Eldest. If the Eldest will not rouse, as he has failed to do so many times before, I will use the Dreamheart to open the Citadel myself. If the Eldest will not find the Key of Stars, I will locate it myself in the Eldest's place!"
Behroun stepped away from the crazed woman. His body wanted to bolt. His mind knew there was no place he could run where Malyanna could not find him.
As if reading his mind, the eladrin noble snapped her fingers and shouted, "Tamur!"
Behroun looked to the entrance, then yelped as a shadow behind the credenza widened, producing the shadow hound.
"Where is Neifion?" she purred at the overgrown dog. "Is the Lord of Bats still in Castle Darroch?"
The dog raised its nose and sniffed. Then it lowered its head and gave a whispery bay that went through Behroun like ice. The dog raced out of the chamber, nose to the ground.
"For your sake, let's hope Tamur finds his quarry." Malyanna brushed past him, following her pet from the feasting chamber.
Behroun looked at the table of succulent delights. The wedges of triple cream cheese at the very edge made his mouth water. He wondered if he wouldn't be better off cramming a piece in his mouth instead of following Malyanna. "Probably," he muttered.
He checked for the dagger at his belt, squared his shoulders, and walked away from the table.
*****
Behroun wandered the shadowed halls of Darroch Castle, steering clear of the furtive movements of the wrinkled men. The air was cold, and silence lay heavy on his ears. Tiny candles flickered from chandeliers and wall sconces, providing pools of light only bright enough to make the shadows press all the closer.
He wondered if Malyanna had returned to the world without him. The thought worried and relieved him in equal measure. The eladrin noble seemed to be skating closer and closer to outright madness—madness only quenchable by blood. Of course if she did leave him behind, eventually Neifion would return to find Behroun trespassing. Free of his never-ending feast, the Lord of Bats might decide to punish Behroun for failing to break the pact stone when Neifion first demanded.
A scream of rage echoed through the castle. This was followed quickly by what sounded like crockery being smashed.
"She's still here." He sighed.
Behroun traced the sound to a tapestried corridor thick with cloying mildew and side chambers heaped with enigmatic shapes under pale sheets. An open door halfway down the hall bled light and the occasional sound of something being smashed.
Lord Marhana walked into a high chamber saturated with musty odors. Bulky objects cluttered the room, their identities cloaked by oilskin tarps. Tamur stood at the chamber's far end sniffing around a set of four wooden blocks. By the indentations left in the blocks, something massive had rested on them until recently.
Malyanna floated near the great hound in a cloud of swirling air. Tatters of oilcloth spun around in the cold wind. Detritus sprinkled the floor beneath her feet: a broken granite statue of a two-headed snake, the shards of a vase that must have sported an elaborate diagram, and a litter of broken glass of many hues whose original profile Behroun couldn't guess.
The eladrin noble saw him. She screamed, "He's gone!" Her glare encompassed him and found him wanting.
She floated to Behroun, alighting just feet away, and held out her hand. "Give me the pact stone. It's time to break it."
"What will that accomplish?" Behroun tried to keep a quaver from his voice. His left hand moved to cup the amulet hanging on his chest. His right hand inched toward his dagger.
"Neifion is currently unavailable to lead us to Japheth. But we can follow the mystic residue of the pact stone's destruction to the Lord of Bats," asserted the eladrin. "Tamur can track more than scent." She thrust her palm forward. "So stop dallying, human. Give me the stone. Now!"
"Very well." He sighed. He knew that whatever happened next, his life was probably over.
Behroun lifted the amulet from his neck and held it over his head like an offering. As Malyanna's eyes followed the movement, he slipped the dagger from its sheath with his other hand..
Then he bent forward and extended his knife arm as if he were punching. The dagger stuck the eladrin in the stomach.
She screamed and backhanded him. His head snapped to the side as something broke in his face. His cheekbone?
Everything was whirling around and ringing. He didn't think he was standing upright any longer. The shock of the blow began to fade, but burning agony crept in to replace it.
He blinked away the spinning grayness trying to smother him. Lord Marhana saw he was lying on his side several feet from where he'd knifed Malyanna. The woman remained standing, but blood ran in a thin rivulet from where the knife still protruded.
The shadow hound snarled and slunk toward Behroun.
"I said 'hold,' Tamur," said the eladrin, her voice strained for the first time he could recall. "You can feast on his entrails later. After he's opened his precious locket."
Good, thought Behroun. I hurt her at least. More than most can probably claim.
The woman gripped his amulet in one hand. She must have taken it from him while he'd lain stunned. How long had he been out? Long enough for her to figure out she couldn't open the star iron locket without help. Behroun realized, as he should have before he'd put a knife in Malyanna, that its function was his last bargaining chip.
The eladrin pulled the knife out of her belly. She screamed words in a language so foul it nearly knocked Behroun unconscious again. The blood came thick and red now, and Malyanna staggered.
Then the flow slowed to a trickle before stopping altogether. Strength returned to the woman with every heartbeat. Though her clothing remained stained and rent, Behroun knew the ancient creature enjoyed some damnable ability to heal herself.
She saw he was watching and laughed. "You don't think I've survived all these years by deceit alone, do you?"
She shook her head and walked to where he lay.
Malyanna tossed the knife aside, bent, and put the amulet in his splayed hand. "Now," she directed. "Open it.
Each moment you delay, I remove a finger."
"IH open it," he rasped. "But only if you swear on your citadel... the Citadel of the Outer Void!"
"You're in no position to make demands." She grabbed a pinkie finger and bent it backward. He gritted his teeth, but a scream escaped him when the finger snapped.
"If you swear," he continued, his voice breathy now, "I'll open the amulet right now."
"Swear what?" she purred as she took hold of his index finger.
"That neither you, nor your hound, nor any servant you command will harm me afterward!"
She growled like an animal herself, then broke the finger she grasped.
He screamed louder this time. The sound seemed to relax the eladrin. She heaved him to his feet and leaned him against a tarp-covered contraption.
"Very well, mortal," said Malyanna. "For the sake of our past alliance, despite how many times you've disappointed me, I'll let you be. If you open this damned contraption now."
"Swear it," he insisted, his voice a whisper.
She collapsed her forearm across his throat so that his breath and blood were cut off for a moment—just long enough for him to panic. Then she released him, smiling. She said, "I vow as a priestess of the Citadel of the Outer Void, as a devotee of the Abolethic Sovereignty, that neither I nor any who serve me will harm you for a period of no less than one year, if you open the amulet right now."
Behroun sagged. He pulled the amulet close and tried to work its secret catch. The pain and awkwardness from the two protruding fingers of his left hand got in the way. He failed once, then twice, to open it.